"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing."~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr

Ho Chi Minh asked President Harry Truman to help his army fight the French: Thus the resultant Truman Doctrine

Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist and Patriot.

My good buddy Dr. J.B. came up with a tremendous find below in an actual letter typed from Ho Chi Minh to President Harry Truman urging him to have the United States intervene on behalf of his communist regime to help fight the French.

“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.” (Harry Truman mach 1947). This is part of the speech Harry S. Truman gave to congress on the behalf of small countries falling to the pressures of communism. The Truman Doctrine was a anti-communist foreign policy that would change of the world.

By John Baldwin M.D.

This was originally sent to my beloved college roommate who is a Navy veteran, but upon reflection, I decided to send it to all Vietnam vets and families of vets and those whose lives were impacted by the Vietnam war, wounded in mind and body and indeed, lost loved ones, sons and husbands.

Ho Chi Minh

Yes, you are correct. It still bothers me, even more as I age and UNDERSTAND the waste that our nation sustained. Perhaps speaking out is therapy. I will say that I was shocked by the fact that the hidden BCC names number about 100. Thank you all for your sacrifices. This essay below may tell you a bit more about those who sent you soldiers as “kids” and how little things…like thinking about a telegram by a victorious president, may make huge differences years and years later. Please do not let this diminish your sacrifice, your dedication or your honor in serving. Remember, I did, too. Read on.

I was thinking today about the futility of war, after our Vietnam vet group meeting…three mass bombings in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan in the past week, the one trillion used since the US decided on an expensive way to take out Saddam Hussein and the unending futility (in my mind) since then.

Truman.doc

Then I remembered copying this seminal telegram from Ho Chi Minh to President Truman after “the war”. This is little, but hopefully the attached site above from National Archives will enable you to read this OLD document, the circular filing of which impacted all of our lives FOREVER.

2 thoughts on “Ho Chi Minh asked President Harry Truman to help his army fight the French: Thus the resultant Truman Doctrine”

In modesty, but with great thankfulness, let me thank you JC for posting this. If the cable/telegram from Ho is not immediately legible, it can be found on line from the National Archives by googling “Ho Chi Minh’s telegram to Truman”…in which all he asks for is for the US to ask the French to NOT COME BACK in 1946. In exposing this trashed, ignored plea or freedom, I do not ever want to denigrate or sully the glorious VietNam vets for whom I operated (1,800) and all but four survived…but to let them know that as KIDS, they were sent to a war that need not to have been waged. That simple. Toss a piece of paper into the wastebaskek and 30 years later, 58,00 GIs have died. You figure, I cannot. Dr. John Baldwin, Surgeon, 24th Evac 68-69.

Yes. The oversight of Truman in this case was an a ct of monumental stupidity and hypocrisy. Ho would have agreed to become a western style democracy had Truman helped Vietnam to become independent – Ho’s only real desire. In his declaration of independence, Ho used verbatum the words from the US declaration of independance and an American flag flew overhead. Instead, Truman backed the French in their classic imperialistic oppression of the Vietnamese people and the US paid 80% of the bill for the French to continue a brutal war against the real owners of Vietnam – the Vietnamese people. By the way, president Wilson also ignored Ho in 1919. That is why Ho went to Lenin and the communists to learn how to overthrow a sitting government. The US forced the Vietnam war on themselves and deserved to lose it. We backed the wrong side every step of the way and the dominoe theory was wrong and born in ignorance and paranoia. It is a traggedy that we lost so many good men and ruined so many famiies on both sides due to the absolute stupidity of these two presidents. Add Johnson to the list.